License issue

[crypto]

We want to use lib at LinkedIn, but legal department have concern about MPL 2.0 License that is slightly copyleft, please consider to use one of other open licenses e.g.:

• Apache 2.0 License
• BSD "2-clause" or "Simplified" License
• BSD "3-clause" License
• MIT License

Thanks.

[fhemberger]

Just out of curiosity: What are the concerns regarding the MPL which don't arise with other copyleft licenses?

[jimmyhchan]

What do you mean "other copyleft licenses"? As far as I know, Apache, BSD, MIT are not copyleft licenses. We would have extra requirements regardless of which copyleft license is used and MPL is likely the most permissive of all the copyleft licenses.

There was no specific concerns as far as I know. It's just easier if it was MIT or Apache which most open JS libraries are.

(I am not a lawyer)

[cure53]

Hi all :)

It's just easier if it was MIT or Apache which most open JS libraries are.

What is "it"? What's easier? Just asking to understand the need for this possible addition.

[jimmyhchan]

Speaking generally (not LinkedIn specific), someone using this library would typically pull down the source and minify/concenate this with other JS. We can make the minification steps smart about keeping license info but we would need to address questions around "distribution" since this JS, the only way to use this code is to distribute it, "binary vs source" since we are minifying code which MPL treats as binary and "viral-ness" of this license as most production sites would combine some proprietary JS with this library when creating a single "file" to serve.

I'm not looking for answers here. I'm sure every company would have different lawyers to interpret these issues for themselves but it's "easier" if we didn't have to answer them at all.

[quanah]

For our company (Zimbra), Apache 1.1, 2.0 are considered free and clear for use. MPL of any sort requires review by our legal team to see how the code will be used. I think the larger difference is that the Apache License (2.0) does not require end user modifications to be shared back to a project, while MPL does in some circumstances.

http://choosealicense.com/licenses/ has a basic bullet point of differences between the two as well.

[cure53]

Thanks @jimmyhchan and @quanah - that helped understanding the issue!

So, the best way would be to add a more tolerant license? Or would the current one have to be replaced? If it's just about adding another one, then I have absolutely no problem with that and am happy to accept a pull request of yours :)

[fhemberger]

… then we need a license which allows the project to be licensed under two different licenses. ;)

[quanah]

many projects are dual or tri-licensed... It was fairly standard for years with Mozilla for them to be MPL/GPL/Apache 2.0

[cure53]

As mentioned, if dual-licensing is the way to go, happy to accept a PR!

[cure53]

Thanks! I think we can close this now? I'll do a quick announcement via Twitter.

[crypto]

Thanks!

[jimmyhchan]

Thank you so much for accepting this. Would it be possible to push another release (0.6.6)?

[cure53]

Yep, probably gonna happen within the next two weeks. We are planning some additional hook demos, once done, we're going 0.6.6.